Come Heller high water: It's Nancy Grace's world, we just live in it

This photo provided by The Guardian Newspaper in London shows Edward Snowden, who worked as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, on Sunday, June 9, 2013, in Hong Kong.File

Come Heller high water …

• The Trayvon Martin case is a great example of what’s wrong with national TV news these days, particularly CNN. CNN selected it early on as a “case du jour” because it had a sellable angle – racial profiling - and the rest of the media followed right along. In the end, a jury found little evidence to support the race angle theory, but that hardly mattered. What mattered is the media got a full year of lurid, pointless speculation out of the case. Meaning: The tail wagged the dog good and hard. The media told us what we should care about and we did. That’s the shame here. We’ve swallowed whole the idea that the courts are theater. It’s Nancy Grace’s world. We just live in it.

• All that said, George Zimmerman was found not guilty but that doesn’t mean he’s innocent. Self-defense or not, he killed an unarmed kid and he’ll have to live with that the rest of his life. It’ll be interesting to see if the Martin family ends up suing him. I would.

• After the verdict, President Obama said, “We should ask ourselves if we're doing all we can to stem the tide of gun violence that claims too many lives across this country on a daily basis. We should ask ourselves, as individuals and as a society, how we can prevent future tragedies like this. As citizens, that's a job for all of us.” I couldn’t agree more. But, uh, one thing: If the Sandy Hook massacre wasn’t enough to get us to take on the gun lobby, why would anyone think the Zimmerman/Martin case will do it?

• Snowden left the country because of the secrecy and deception in our government. So now he’s seeking asylum in Russia, land of openness and freedom. I love irony.

• Best late night joke I’ve heard recently: “According to a new study, inactivity can kill you. You can die from doing nothing. Believe me. These findings scare the hell out of the Congress.”

• Suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, which is strange. I didn’t even know he had a band.

• A lot of people are saying that putting a terrorist on the cover is in bad taste. But it could have been worse. They could have used Justin Bieber.

• Speaking of the Biebs, an Ohio man is saying Bieber spat in his face last weekend. Again, it could have been worse. He could have sung to the guy.

• Need Has a Face. This week it looks like Mr. Smith, who is raising his grandchildren on his own. The kids have asthma and the basement leaks when it rains. He needs a dehumidifier. To help, call Joni Zyber at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, 810-262-6125. Information for these reports is provided by Resource Genesee, 810-767-0500.

• “Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.” – Andy Rooney, (1919-2011), American writer.